GAO releases TSA air marshal report

At the request of House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Tuesday released a report that found that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) could better incorporate risk into its method of selecting on which flights federal air marshals (FAMS) will be deployed.

The recommendations are consistent with recent testimony given by the airline industry and airport community highlighting flaws with the TSA’s current staffing models at the nation’s airports.

“Unfortunately GAO’s findings that the Federal Air Marshals are not being allocated in the most effective and risk-based manner is consistent with the challenges TSA faces with its on the ground resources at the checkpoints,” McCaul said. “We have been reminded again that TSA does not always do a very good job of identifying its needs and efficiently leveraging its existing resources. Congress needs to act to ensure that TSA is adequately assessing its staffing needs both on the ground and in the air, and that TSA is deploying its existing resources in order to mitigate risk and do all it can to prevent terrorist attacks.”

The report recommended that the TSA further incorporate risk into FAMS’s method for dividing resources between international and domestic flights, conduct a risk assessment to support certain domestic deployment decisions, document the rationale for FAMS’s selection of international deployment destinations, adopt a consistent name and definition for the TSA coverage score, and report performance results for all categories that comprise the score.